As I settle down to put in writing this address, a thought came to my mind about all of us. It is a thought that goes to the very foundation of what democracy should mean for us. I saw us all who are in this hall, I link that with our people back home: I mean our parents, our children, our friends and neighbours and I realised that our needs are all the same, whether we are here or there, ordinary Nigerians in our country and indeed the majority of humanity first want the very basics of life: food, shelter, security, health, education, progress - which can be translated to simple events like house, electricity, clean water, good job and safety.
But sadly we have not been able to provide for ourselves or overcome the challenges as others have successfully done. So the question comes to mind: why and how we have failed in this monumental manner, even though we had more than what is needed or required to achieve success.
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{youtubejw}3OcKWGS5YvE{/youtubejw}How did we get it totally wrong in making good use of our God given resources to solve our problems. Instead, the way we have used and abused those resources have ended up creating more problems for us.
What about nation-building itself? How come we fail to establish a nation that all of us can identify with, love, work and strive for - and, if necessary, even die for?
Thirdly, why have we have we failed to get the institutions we inherited at independence - and those we have established ourselves - to work to deliver results? I am thinking of what should be our democratic institutions, structures that should protect and promote law and order - in addition to the catalogue of bad and badly implemented policies that drive us towards the status of a failed state.
Nationhood and nation-building. And I start by asserting that it is to begin to claim our country. Too often we appear to be waiting for someone else - the Americans, the Europeans, our own soldiers - to solve our difficulties. Only we Nigerians can make our country a democracy, can hold our leaders to account. This is our responsibility. If we do not rise to it, we will have the government we deserve. We have wasted enough time already. As poverty and decay spread, it is a luxury we can ill afford.
We have had it rough and bloody in holding on to the unity of the nation. Despite the sacrifices we have made, the hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who lost their lives in the Civil War alone, our all too frequent spasms of ethnic, regional and religious conflict, the terrible cost paid not by our leaders but those over whom they rule, we still seem yet to appreciate that the tenacious hold such divisions seem to have over us will lead us nowhere other than towards the abyss - a fate already suffered in Congo, Rwanda, Sudan, Somalia and Ivory Coast; even Ethiopia and Eritrea, which agreed to part in 1991 as allies are now enemies, waging an undeclared war neither can afford.
The reality is - and perhaps this is a perspective that is easier to appreciate here in the diaspora - there is far more that binds us together than divides us. Diversity can be a positive factor: Tanzania has nearly 300 ethnic groups but has promoted a genuine sense of unity, identity and patriotism. From whichever part of the country they come, first and foremost they are Tanzanians.
By contrast, almost the entire population of Somalia is from the same ethnic group, speaks the same language and shares the same religion - and the country collapsed as a functioning state in 1991, after decades as a corrupt dictatorship.
Today the greatest threat we face in Nigeria is the Niger Delta, a symbol of all our failures, political, social and economic. The rich resources from the region have not simply been wasted; they have been misused to fuel injustice and promote corruption and laziness, and in particular from a self-appointed elite, concerned mostly with rent seeking.
It need not be so. Compare Nigeria with Botswana: both are African countries rich in natural resources. When Botswana’s leaders began to understand the potential significance of such resources, traditional chiefs from all 18 provinces came together and agreed that the benefit of the resources should be shared nationally - just as in Nigeria. But unlike Nigeria,Botswana established a clear and transparent means of exploitation and management of her resources: there were well-defined and observed rules as to how the revenue that was generated should be used. The system was open and accountable, under the control not solely of government but a combination of stakeholders that included a publicly traded international mining company, a parliament of genuinely elected representatives, the chiefs and civil society organisations.
Revenue from the mining sector is deployed in two separate accounts: one for government costs according to Botswana’s Defined Development plans and budgets; the other for savings for future generations. The results are clear. Botswana in a single generation has moved from one of Africa’s poorest countries to among its most well developed, with rates of economic growth that are consistently the envy of the continent and compare favourably with the Asian Tigers in the 1980s and 90s.
As long ago as the 1970s, Botswana set up - and has remained consistently committed to - independent institutions with a genuine and effective capacity to promote transparency and accountability; and to combat corruption. As a result, the nation has received the full benefit of their natural resources, which in turn helped prevent the emergence of the tensions that fuel conflict in the Niger Delta and undermine governance more generally.
What it tells us is that corruption and mismanagement undermine real democracy - as opposed to civilian rule - and breed injustice. The oil industry is set up in such a way in Nigeria as to provide almost no real accountability, and into the bargain generates significant environmental costs. The overwhelming majority of Nigerians across the country are net losers from the oil sector, while a tiny minority, with no apparent technical skills but a capacity to know - and look after - the right people at the right time has become fantastically wealthy.
So if we are to begin to build a vibrant and sustainable democracy in Nigeria, we must start to break the barriers that divide us. It is time for us to start to reclaim our country. The silent majority in Nigeria has tremendous, unrealised power. We must use it to write a new and better destiny for our children. The next important issue we must address is how best to provide those essentials that every Nigerian should as a right expect - food, shelter, security, health and education.
Again, corruption is the challenge we must meet. Corruption is not just a question of bribes, it is about mismanagement, abuse of office, erosion of our values, integrity and institutions. It is about the primitive, individual accumulation of wealth at the cost of genuine economic growth, it is about the flight of capital out of the country, the collapse of industries and a private sector that typically has a parasitic relationship with government. It is about a narrow but national clique of our people who find it easy to distort systems written on paper to acquire political office and then steal money permanently to keep themselves in power.
It is about those who dare to challenge corruption and get dealt with, defeated, allowing business as usual to continue.
So long as we fail to tackle a corruption that has become so toxic and systemic, there is little prospect for democracy to grow in Nigeria. This is because the resources we need to promote justice and development are diverted to suit the interests of a self-perpetuating clique that places its own interests above those of the nation.
Corruption affects the performance and competence of all strategic institutions. It destroys trust and confidence, it distorts markets and the commercial environment, where legitimate business is unable to compete with the fraud and cheating that has become so common. As a result, our economy consistently underperforms.
The issue of security is also paramount if we are to achieve the basic essentials of life to which Nigerians should be entitled. We must have an effective framework to sustain law and order. People must feel safe, violence crime must be tackled. If this is to be done, we must face up the corruption that is rife in our law enforcement system. This is the only strategy on which democracy and good governance can be built.
Democracy should not be an empty phrase that masks the wholesale looting of the many by the few. We need a system that is immune from the corrosive pressures that ensure most voters are effectively disenfranchised well in advance of polling day. We must meet the basic conditions of an honest voter registration process and an election conducted in a free and fair manner. Nigeria today has an appalling electoral record; we are put to shame even by Zimbabwe.
Barack Obama has chosen Ghana for his first trip to Africa. Some in Nigeria have questioned the decision. The logic, however, is simple: Ghanaians have demonstrated a real commitment to the democratic process, both in the organization of elections and the conduct of government since 1994.
The single biggest challenge before Nigeria is leadership. We need leadership that can inspire, mobilise, and provide a sense of belonging and community, a leadership that is open, honest, transparent, selfless and modern. At the highest level, effective leadership provides confidence, promotes our external image and wins us friends. It is sad that we have squandered the goodwill we generated from the support we extended in the past to our brothers and sisters from South Africa to Sierra Leone.
I believe we can turn this moment of disappointment into an opportunity for change and draw a final line under our sorry past. We must start a new history. Those in the diaspora, with the skills and experience of systems that work and deliver, have a critical role to play. Let us heal our wounds and put aside our differences. Really, there is no time.
*Nuhu Ribadu prepared this address for the "State of the Nation" Summit of the Nigeria Liberty Forum at the London Metropolitan University, 29 May 2009
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